


Doused Flames and Aching Scars

by TimeLadyoftheSith



Series: One Long Night [1]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/M, Fighting, Jimmy Stone meets Ten, Not Canon Compliant, Remembering Domestic Violence, The Oncoming Storm, angst with happy ending, nudity but no smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-22
Updated: 2017-03-22
Packaged: 2018-10-09 01:42:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10400898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TimeLadyoftheSith/pseuds/TimeLadyoftheSith
Summary: Rose is returning to the TARDIS after a night out with Shareen. She runs into Jimmy Stone, and The Oncoming Storm steps in.Now the Doctor wants to know what Jimmy did to her. Can Rose finally let those old wounds open in order to heal?





	1. The Oncoming Storm most definitely would mind

"Are you sure you don't need a ride Rose?"

Shareen was grinning as she hung over her new boyfriends shoulder. The cab door behind them was open, but Rose didn't want to intrude.

"I'll be fine!" Rose laughed. She was only a bit tipsy, nothing that would prevent her from the three blocks back to the TARDIS.

"Call me when you get home!" Shareen kissed her on both cheeks.

"I will! Have a good night!" She waved as the cab pulled away from the curb. Digging in her small over the shoulder clutch, Rose pulled out her mobile and keyed in the TARDIS number.

"Rose!" The Doctor's voice sounded muffled and there was a loud pop and a sizzle from the other end of the line. "How's the club?"

"Just left." Rose giggled, she could see him in her mind wedged under the console attempting some repair. He probably had burned himself, yep, he just yelped in pain. "I'm on my way back!"

"Oh! Do you want me to come get you?" The sound of the Doctor scrambling across the grating was audible.

"I'm fine, it's a short walk. I'll be there in five minutes" She rolled her eyes a bit at him.

"Alright." Why did he sound a bit dejected? "See you then!"

"Not if I see you first." Rose giggled as she ended the call.

It was nice out. The sky was clear, the air was warm from the summer season, and the liquor in Rose's system had her feeling nice and light. She strolled leisurely along the sidewalk, her heels clicking lightly against the stone.

A whistled echoed from a small pub across the street. Rose ignored it and kept walking. Then a voice called out, and her blood ran cold. "Looking sexy as ever, Rose!" Her feet froze. She couldn't help it. The man shot across the gap in traffic, his heavy soles landing on the curb just behind her.

Move Rose ordered herself. Her feet obeyed, and she stepped forward.

"I know you heard me!" A strong hand closed on her elbow. It pulled Rose around, and her stomach sank to her toes.

"Let me go Jimmy." Rose protested, yanking her arm free.

"Been looking for you everywhere, Rose." His eyes were only slightly clouded with alcohol, not surprising. "Then here you are, like it's my birthday or something."

"Get fucked." Rose growled turning around. It was only one block to the TARDIS. She could make it.

"Oh, talk dirty to me." Jimmy smirked and pulled her back by her waist, securing her bum firmly against his belt.

Once again, Rose jerked away. She managed to make it three steps before Jimmy snagged her right wrist and spun her around to face him. His fingers tightened in that all too familiar manner.

"Your mum said you were traveling with some Doctor now." He laughed sardonically. "I didn't believe her, but judging by these clothes, I see she's right."

Rose raised her left hand to deliver a smack to his cheek, but Jimmy's other hand snagged it like lightning. "Let me go." Rose hissed.

"That what you're doing now, Rose?" Jimmy forced her hands down to her sides. "You're some old man's fuck toy? Hmmm? You suck him off every night, and he buys you something shiny?"

His mocking laugh was more than she could handle. She raised her foot to deliver a kick right to his groin, but she stumbled, unsteady on the sky high heels she had chosen that night.

Jimmy pulled her towards him, pinning her hands between their chests. His breath reeked of cheap beer, cigarettes, and liquor.

"I'm not his fuck toy!" Rose spat in his face.

Jimmy let her go long enough to wipe his eyes, but then snagged Rose by her elbow again as moved to dash away.

"Well if you aren't his slut, then I'm sure he wouldn't mind if I took you for a quick shag. I mean, he let you go out dressed like that." Jimmy pulled Rose close again, his mouth descending quickly to hers when a cold voice growled out from behind her.

"He most definitely would mind." Jimmy looked up, but Rose had no need to turn around. That voice could only belong to one individual, The Oncoming Storm.

"Oh piss off." Jimmy tightened his fingers on Rose's wrists. "Can't you see that my woman and I are having a moment?"

The brown pinstripes of the Doctor's sleeve passed into Rose's field of vision. His nimble fingers wrapped firmly around Jimmy's wrists. "I'm sure you'll be surprised to find that that is my woman you are holding." He dug those same fingers into Jimmy's flesh. "And if you enjoy having your hands attached to your arms, it would behoove you to unhand her."

Jimmy's hands dropped free, and the Doctor stepped quickly between Rose and the bastard. Yep, Rose could tell by his shoulder width stance and his arms slightly out from his sides that he was most definitely in Oncoming Storm mode.

"So you're the rich bastard who pulled her out of the slums, eh?" Jimmy shook his head, rubbing his wrist slightly. "You know what they say though, don't you Mr. Doctor? You can't turn a whore into a housewife."

Rose opened her mouth to throw a few choice insults at the man who had made her life hell for two years, but the Doctor shot a look back over his shoulder at her. Her jaw snapped closed.

"Tell me, Pinstripes, with you, has she done that thing where she opens her throat and presses your cock with her tongue?"

Rose had never seen the Doctor strike anyone in the three years she had known him, but his fist walloped into Jimmy's mouth with a resounding crack.

The pitiful excuse of a man crumbled to the ground. He spit a globule of blood onto the sidewalk and a tooth clattered out with it.

"Apologize." The Doctor ordered, returning to his previous stance.

"To that bitch?" Jimmy stumbled to his feet, he let another mouth full of spit splash to the ground. "She should apologize to me, for running out on me." He brushed the blood dribbling down his chin with a sleeve. "I'll sue the fuck out of you, and then what will your whore do? How you gonna keep her fucking you if you can't pay her?"

The Doctor's hand closed around Jimmy's throat lifting him off the ground. "I told you to apologize to the lady."

"Sorry." Jimmy croaked.

"Not sincere enough. Try harder."

"Doctor! He's not worth it!" Rose finally spoke up. Jimmy had been turning a rather satisfying shade of purple, but still.

"He insulted you, Rose." The Doctor explained, his voice even but still deathly cold.

"He can't hurt me anymore, Doctor." Rose placed a tender hand on his shoulder. "Drop him, and let's go home."

"Your wish is my command, Rose Tyler." The Doctor sighed and dropped sent Jimmy stumbling into some bushes a few feet away. Then he turned to Rose and took her hand gently in his.

The hurried walk the last block was silent, but when the doors snapped closed behind them, Rose turned to the Doctor.

"How'd you know?" She asked kicking off her heels.

"You said five minutes." The Doctor explained. "So at five minutes and thirty seconds, I went to meet you." His cool fingers took Rose's hands, and he examined her wrists in the dim light of the time rotor. "The redness should fade in a few minutes."

"I know." Rose gave a soft smile. Then she went up on her tip toes to kiss his cheek. "Thank you." She giggled inwardly when his ear flushed pink at the tips. "'M gonna go shower now, kay?" She turned and headed down the ramp.

"Rose?" The Doctor's voice was soft. "What did you mean by anymore?"

"What?" Rose froze, her stomach churning.

"You said he can't hurt you anymore." The Doctor was wasn't moving closer, but Rose could feel his concern burning into the back of her neck.

"He's my ex, alright?" Rose whispered. "The one I dropped out of my A-levels for."

"That's not an explanation."

"I don't want to talk about him anymore Doctor." Rose felt the tears welling in her eyes, she refused to turn. If she talked about it, she'd remember. If she remembered, she'd feel the pain all over again. Couldn't he understand that?

"Rose, I would like to know." She heard him swallow. "But only if you want to share."

Rose was conflicted. He had shared so much with her: the details of the Time War, how he'd destroyed his own people, even the number of children that had perished that fateful day. If he could share, then so she could she. That's what best friends did. Rose swallowed now, and she held her hand out behind her. "It'd be easier to show you." She whispered.

She felt the Doctor's cool fingers lace through hers, and she led him down the hall to her room.

 


	2. Why Did You Stop Me?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Very graphic descriptions of domestic abuse.  
> Don't read if you trigger easily  
> You have been warned

Rose led the Doctor wordlessly to her room. She shut the door behind them and gestured to her bed. "Sit. I just." She ran her hands through her hair. "I need a moment."

"Whatever you need Rose." The Doctor murmured, his eyes so gentle as he watched her from his perch on her bed.

Rose dug in her dresser drawer and her fingers clasped around what she sought. She bundled it tight and turned to the Doctor. "Wait here please. I need to wash this smell off of me."

"Of course." The Doctor nodded and pulled a gadget out of his pocket to fiddle with.

Rose slipped into her ensuite and turned on the water. She scrubbed herself clean, erasing the glitter, lotion, and even her heavy makeup from her skin. Once she felt as clean of that bastard's filthy touch as she could, Rose stepped out of the shower and toweled off. She instinctively reached for her foundation but stilled her hand. She had promised.

She reached for the tiny satin robe she had snatched from her drawer. It had been a gift from Jack, something to wear if she ever got the nerve to make a move on the Doctor. Yet, this was not the purpose it would serve tonight. She had simply chosen it because walking out of the shower starkers would probably have sent him screaming from the room. Wearing a bra and panties would probably have done the same. So, this scrap of black material would have to suffice.

Rose slipped it over her arms and tied the sash. It barely closed over her trembling breasts, and it stopped just at the top of her thighs. It was long enough to cover her lady bits and most of her bum, but it exposed the areas she needed to show him. She tousled some antifrizz cream in her hair, looked in the mirror to ready herself, and stepped out the door.

The Doctor had kicked his shoes off and was reclining against her pillows, still tinkering with his toy. So Rose cleared her throat.

His eyes wandered up and his jaw, quite literally, dropped open. "Rose." He stammered and scrambled into a sitting position, the gadget rolling from his grasp to the floor. "I...I'm confused." His eyes had locked very gentlemanly to the ceiling.

"Doctor, come here." Rose whispered, standing stone still at the foot of the bed. She couldn't manage this if he didn't hurry up. She already felt sick to her stomach.

The Doctor's eyes found hers and held them. He swallowed as he scooted down the bed, to let his legs dangle to the left of where she was standing. Rose heaved a sigh and sat next to him. She let her hair cover her face. She sought out his hand, which was resting lightly on his thigh, and laced her fingers through his. She had to touch him. He was her anchor. With him, she was powerful, unstoppable, a hero. His other hand came over to cover the top of her knuckles. His cool caress washed away some of her fear.

"I met." Rose began, and squeezed her eyes shut. "I met Jimmy when I was sixteen. I was young and rebellious. He had a motorcycle and played the guitar. He was eighteen and the hottest thing on the estate. Every girl wanted him. Hell, even the old ladies wanted him." She gulped, her heart pounding.

The Doctor ghosted a thumb over her wrist, remaining the quietest she had ever heard him awake.

"He wanted me. I thought I was in love. He and his buddies started a band and they started getting some gigs." Rose chewed her lip. "He got his own flat on the other side of the city, and I could hardly see him with my school schedule. He said he loved me, and wanted to marry me, but couldn't handle me being so far away and at school. So I dropped out and moved in with him." There went the Doctor's thumb again, as gentle as a breeze against her skin.

Rose paused a moment to breathe. She needed to recall the memories without losing herself. The Doctor remained quiet and still, only his breathing and soft thumb reminding her he was there.

"It started off small." Rose explained. "He started getting jealous of every guy I knew. Soon the accusations of me cheating began. I didn't want him to leave me, so I cut all my male friends off, even Mickey." She choked back a sniffle. "Then he got mad that I was home all day while he was out rehearsing, and he made me get a job. I had to keep the house and work, while he rehearsed, did gigs and partied." Rose felt bile rise in her stomach. "I also had to fulfill his needs before I went to work and when he came home."

This elicited a reaction from the statue beside her. Just a sharp inhale and a twitch of his fingers.

"Well, I was pulling double shifts at the shop, and sometimes I couldn't keep up with the parties he always had at the flats. It started the day I screamed at him to help me clean his friend Josh's vomit off the kitchen wall." Rose paused here, and drew a breath. "He slapped me, and I hit him back. He grabbed an empty beer bottle from the table, and bashed it into my eye." Now Rose lifted her head, staring at the open ensuite door, and moved her hair back with right hand.

For the first time in three years, her face was exposed to the Doctor without some sort of foundation, powder, or concealer. She couldn't look at him, but she saw he had been watching her intently the entire time. So many emotions passed over his face as he beheld the inch long scar that ran from her left eye to her eyebrow. He made a noise in his throat, something between a yelp a growl and a choking sound. He didn't say a word though, just kept watching her.

"He apologized, later. Bought me flowers, a new dress, took me out to the cinema." Rose snorted. "Promised he'd never do it again. I was young, and I believed him." She lowered her eyes back down to her thighs.

"A few months later, we got into a row over something about a bill he didn't pay. I had to come out of my lunch money for work to cover it." She shook her head. "Well, he shoved me into a wall and I threatened to leave. He grabbed his razor off the bathroom counter and did this." She lifted her head all the way up and turned to face him, skirting her eyes over his face, so her right cheek was exposed to him. Four thin white lines ran up to her ear. The hand overtop of her's twitched, balled into a fist, and then relaxed.

"That earned me a diamond bracelet from some scumbag thief down the hall." Rose shook her head, gazing back at her lap. "Things went okay for a while, he evenly let me start talking to Mickey again. I thought for sure he was really sorry that time."

Rose bit back tears, balling her right hand against her thigh. "Then, one night, he came home totally shitfaced. Mickey was over, and we were on the couch watching the match. He punched Mickey in the face, and threw him out of the flat. Said he knew I was fucking him, and he was going to teach me who I belonged too." Rose forced herself not to shake. It took her several gasps of air before she could stop the trembles. "I wasn't fucking Mickey, and I swore that to Jimmy, but he wouldn't listen. He dragged me to the bedroom by my hair and threw me into the dresser. That's how I got this." Rose eased the shoulder of the robe down to expose a five inch long scar running down her left shoulder blade.

This time the Doctor gave a solid growl. He didn't speak. He didn't move. Just let the sound vibrate from his chest. Rose felt the air crackle around her. Maybe she should stop. "Doctor, I don't want to upset you." Rose gasped, finally addressing him instead of the air. She tried to pull her hand free.

"Your hand is the only thing stopping me from hunting him down right now." The Doctor whispered so softly she barely heard him. "Only continue if you can handle it."

Rose nodded, still unable to look at him, the shame at her young naivety burned deep.

"That's when he started screwing with my head. Comments on my weight, my appearance, my lack of education. He mentally beat me down. Said I was lucky to have him, because I was nothing but some whore from the estate and nobody else would ever want me." Rose scoffed at this. "I became too self deprecating to leave. My friends had stopped trying to contact me, and my mum was livid with me not staying in school and losing my gymnastics scholarship to uni." Rose felt her cheeks flush in shame. "Except for him, I was totally alone. I had nowhere to go."

Drawing a breath, she continued. "Then, one day, his friends were over and I was cleaning. Brandon, I think, made a comment about how hot I looked in the shorts and crop top I was wearing. Jimmy laughed it off then, but that night I bore the brunt of it."

She paused her words as she stood, and wriggled her hand from the Doctor's grasp. He clung to her fingers until he realized their destination, the sash of her robe. He tightened his fingers around her hand as she worked the knot loose "Rose." He sought her eyes. "You don't have-"

"I promised, Doctor." She said simply, still not meeting his gaze. She tossed his hand loose with a flick of her wrist. Then, steeling herself, she let the robe fall open and slip to the floor.

This was not at all how she had imagined him seeing her naked. Yet, he wasn't looking at her body, he was still trying to catch her eyes. She lifted her gaze and met the pleading brown orbs. "Doctor, just look."

She felt his eyes drag down her form, and she stared blindly at the wall behind him. There, speckled across her flesh were tiny white circles. They were randomly placed. Jimmy had been so drunk that night, and he hadn't cared where the cigarette had made contact. Her chest, her breasts, her stomach, and her thighs. Anything to prevent her from wearing revealing clothes.

Now the Doctor knew why she always wore a one piece in the pool at the beach, why she always strapped on tights or panty-hose under her skirts, shorts, and dresses.

"I still thought I was so alone. I never told a soul. Not my mum, not even Mickey. Though Mickey guessed later on." Rose sighed. She could feel the Doctor's eyes cataloging each and every burn. "Three days later, I came home from work early, because I hurt so badly, and found him fucking some groupie. I packed my things and walked out. I sat on the bus for three hours with my suitcase, before Shareen got on. I told her I left, and she called my mum. Mum met me at the bus stop and took me right back in. A month later I quit my job at the shop and went to work for Henrik's. Shortly after, Jimmy got busted dealing drugs to an undercover cop."

Rose let the story come to an end, and she knelt to pick up her robe. Her fingers had closed around the soft fabric when the Doctor spoke.

"I should have strangled him then and there."   
Rose looked up and the Doctor's face was contorted in rage. "Why did you stop me?"


	3. I Would, If I Were Them

"Doctor?" Rose scrambled to stand, the black scrap of satin forgotten by her feet. She hadn't seen the Doctor this angry since the Dalek in Utah, almost two years before. Behind those normally tender eyes burned a fire and rage she had forgotten existed inside of him.

"Why did you stop me, Rose?" His fists were clenched onto his trouser legs. "I could have snuffed his pitiful life out of existence with a single squeeze." He surged to his feet. "I could have repaid him the pain he caused you a thousand times over." The Doctor's voice was dangerously even, but his chest heaved and his whole body trembled. Rose could almost see sparks flickering out of the soft brown hair she loved to run her fingers through when they cuddled during a movie.

Rose stuttered, trying to find a reason. She couldn't come up with one that he wouldn't be able to refute with his blabbering logic.

"I'm going to kill him." The Doctor had paused to yank his trainers on. "I'm going to find him, and I'm going to toss him into a fucking black hole." A shiver ran the length of his body and his eyes lit up, quite literally, with a flash. "Better yet, I'm going to find him, and I'm going to dump him into an event horizon."

The TARDIS had retreated her hum to the lowest Rose had ever heard, and she realized the old girl was afraid. So was Rose.

The Doctor was muttering under his breath, spittle flying as he tied his trainers. When he stood back up, Rose was floored by the manic look on his face. She grabbed his hand as he turned to the door. Electricity shot up her arm, causing the hairs there to stand on end. She felt the damp hair at the base of her neck crackle and hiss at the surging current.

"Doctor!" She shouted, and he turned back to face her. His eyes were literally blazing at her, intense white light shimmering out from the brown irises. "You're scaring me." She meant to scream it at him, but it came out a whimper.

Just like that, the light in his eyes blinked from existence. The current surging through her hand and up her arm died. The manic rage that had contorted his face gave way to a look of remorse and concern so tender it pierced her soul. The Oncoming Storm flickered from the Doctor's body at the same time Rose's iron clad defenses shattered into a billion pieces. She released his hand and collapsed to the bed.

It had been nearly four years since she had developed the courage to walk out on Jimmy, and, in those four years, she had never once shed a single tear. She had locked it away so tight and so far in her memory, that the only time she thought of the pain as part of her scars, is when she had the nightmares. Even then, when she woke screaming, she refused to cry.

She was well past that now. For the first time in her life, somebody was angry at the person who did it, and not shaming her for staying so long. Her brain had no procedure for processing this new situation, and it destroyed her tightly locked box of emotions.

Uncontrollable tears gushed out of her like a tsunami. She didn't sob or gasp for air. She just hid her face from him in her sheets and let the tidal wave loose.

A gentle hand brushed her bare shoulder, and Rose reflexively jerked away. She couldn't help it. "Oh Rose." The Doctor's voice was strangled, and she felt his fingers touch the scar on her back. She forced herself to lay still, to focus on his cool finger drifting up her burning skin. She curled herself into a ball.

The bed shifted, as the Doctor lay next to her. He let his fingers trail down her arm to rest on the blanket next to her own hand. He didn't make another move to touch her, and it confused Rose. He always grabbed her hand or pulled her in for a hug when she was hurt or upset. What was he doing?

The reality hit her like a rampaging Dalek. He was waiting for her to span the gap. This did make her gasp and sob. Rose stretched her fingers blindly across the sheets and found his touch. She grasped his hand, and pulled herself close to his body.

The Doctor lay stock still, his thumb doing the ghost like stroke across her knuckles. Rose finally found her voice and crossed. "Please, Doctor, hold me."

He didn't even hesitate. He had her curled against his chest with one hand in her hair and the other so gingerly holding her hand before she could blink. "Oh Rose." He cooed to her like he was trying to calm a skittish horse. "I didn't want to scare you." He stroked the back of her head and her hand simultaneously. "I'd never, ever harm you." He breathed the words, and Rose did not doubt for a moment the sincerity she heard there. "I'm so, so sorry, Rose." Did he just kiss the top of her head? No, she must have imagined it.

It took about thirty minutes for the sobbing to subside to a sniffling bout of hiccups. The Doctor had spent the entire time stroking her hair and letting her get it all out. Rose drew a shaky breath, unaware until at that moment that an answer had formed in her mind.

"Because you're not an evil man." Her voice was a whisper, mumbled into his chest

"Rose, sweetheart, are you asleep?" The Doctor's voice was gentle, and she felt him brush her hair from her face to check her eyes.

"'M awake." She mumbled into his tear- soaked shirt. "You asked me why I stopped you, before." She lifted her swollen eyes to look at him. She saw that he, too, had been crying. "Because, you're not an evil man." She gave him a weak smile.

The Doctor looked properly stunned at that statement. "Well." He breathed, his own voice shaky. "I can't argue with that."

Rose felt her body shiver, and it took her a moment to remember why she was so chilled. Well this was awkward. She was curled, quite literally, around the Doctor's body. One of her legs was resting between his thighs. Her breasts were pressed into his ribs, and her pelvis was resting against his hipbones. "Oh my God." She gasped, and tried to sit up. His arms held her close, not roughly, just firm enough to let her know he was not sure whether she was ready to be let go.

"What?" The Doctor was staring at her in confusion.

"Doctor, I'm." Crying wasn't the only thing that was tinging her face red now. "I'm naked."

"I noticed." He mused, his sparkling eyes never left hers. His fingers kept their stroking motions in her hair and on her hand. He chuckled after a moment.

"What's so funny about me being naked?" Rose snipped.

"You're worried about me seeing your skin." He ghosted his fingers across the back of her shoulders to emphasize his words, and promptly returned them to her hair. "But you so readily laid your deepest pain bare before me."

His voice was reverent, and Rose was confused. "I don't understand."

"This." His fingers grazed her back again. "This isn't being naked." The Doctor released her hand to brush her sopping wet cheeks. "This is."

"Oh." Rose gasped. The Doctor wasn't a sexual man. Sure he snogged someone every now again again, like certain french hussies, but Rose had never so much as seen him look at a woman in a rakish manner. His people were people of thoughts and words. So, Rose realized, letting this out was probably the Time Lord equivalent to her sprawling on a bear skin rug in front of a roaring fireplace wearing nothing but a Christmas ribbon around her neck.

Rose couldn't help herself. She let out a giggle. "Now there's my favorite sound." The Doctor grinned at her. "But now I want to know what's so amusing?"

"Nothing." Rose giggled again, feeling the pain and fear slowly melting away. She wiggled up to bury her face in his neck, inhaling the smell of grease, musty books, fading cologne, and that sparkling smell she just associated with time.

"Rose?" The Doctor murmured, wrapping both arms around her and squeezing.

"Yes, Doctor." She replied, and smiled at the way her breath caused goosebumps to rise on his neck.

"He lied you know." The Doctor's voice was so soft she barely heard him.

"About what?" Rose whispered back. More goosebumps appeared along the bit of skin exposed above his buttoned shirt.

"You're not some stupid whore from the estates." His voice was a bit stronger now. "You're beautiful, clever, brave, and strong. You seek out the beauty and goodness in everyone and everything you meet." His thumb had started those circles again, this time on her bare back. "Any man should consider himself lucky to have your love." He cleared his throat. "I would, if I were them."

 


	4. May I?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tooth rotting fluff to make up for destroying your hearts two chapters back.

Rose felt like she was hit by a wrecking TARDIS. The Doctor, the Last of the Time Lords, the Oncoming Storm, the Bringer of Darkness, the Saver of Worlds, the most powerful being in the multiverse would consider himself lucky, to be loved, by her? Rose made a strangled mewling sound in her throat and felt herself turn pink from the crown of her head to the tip of her toes.

"Am I squeezing too hard?" The Doctor asked, loosing his arms around her.

"What did you say?" Rose breathed into his ear. She couldn't bring herself to look at his face. If she did, she might give her own feelings away. If he was just talking to make her feel better, letting that show would be a train wreck. So she gave him an out, an easy path to cut and run.

"I would consider myself lucky." The Doctor confirmed, tightening his arms around her.

Oh, well, that was unexpected. That was as unDoctorish as he could be. Rose had to see his face. She lifted her head and found he was gazing at her with hesitation and, was that fear, in his eyes. "Oh." That was the only word Rose could make come out of her throat.

"There she is." The Doctor's smile was nervous as his eyes took in her face. "There's my lovely Rose."

"Hi." She smiled back, and felt like a total idiot. The man just practically admitted he loved her, or wanted her to love him at least, and all she could manage was an 'oh' and a 'hi'.

The Doctor seemed to notice her uncertainty. "I mean it." A blush was now creeping across his face, exposing a few freckles Rose had never noticed before. He brought a hand around to unstick some hairs that were pasted by salt to her cheek and lips. The Doctor ran his thumb down her cheek and stroked her bottom lip. "If I were so lucky, I'd shout it from the tallest tree, on the tallest mountain on every planet. I'd paint it across the constellations of every system. I'd whisper it, in the ancient language of the old high Gallifreyans, to the smallest microbe in the tiniest pond on the smallest moon. I'd say, 'Rose Tyler loves me. How lucky a man I am.'"

Rose felt her lower lip pop open in dazed wonder. How could she respond to that? What could she possibly say that held even the slightest of comparison to the unbridled declaration that had fallen from his lips? His thumb paused in its gentle ministrations, and ever so slowly dropped to her chin. With the slightest of pressure, The Doctor pushed up, closing her lips together, and his thumb began caressing her jawline.

Rose should say something, anything, not just sit there like a calf staring at a new gate. "Well, whisper it then." She managed to stutter out, and she felt the Doctor's hearts stutter under her hands.

The Doctor parted his lips and whispered a string of musical syllables into the space between them. They rose and fell, like an orchestra of emotions around her, and when he was finished, she felt the words settle against her skin. Deep in the farthest recesses of the TARDIS, chimes echoed out, like a million tiny silver bells on Christmas morning.

The Doctor pressed ever so tenderly against her cheek, a request, an invitation, and Rose lowered her face down to kiss him. Their lips brushed softly, and a spark flew down her spine, exploding into a cascade of tingles into her fingers and toes. The Doctor breathed against her lips. "Did you feel that?"

"Yes!" Rose sighed.

"Good." The Doctor replied and pressed his lips to hers again. He never moved his hands from their position on her cheek and the middle of her back. He just let his lips form to hers. It was, without a doubt, the most tender and loving kiss Rose had ever felt. She captured his lower lip between her own, and spread her fingers across his chest. When she sighed in exhilaration, his tongue did not press for access. It simply slid across her upper lip in a cool caress.

The Doctor tasted like the first rain of a spring morning, a warm mug of tea on an aching throat, and the beach at sunrise. The festering wound that had scarred her heart for so long, slowly began to mend. His lips moved so perfectly with hers, parting at just the right moments, slipping together when hers broke free just to surge forward and press together again.

It was the Doctor who broke the kiss. He pulled back just a fraction, and for a moment Rose was afraid he would run screaming, claiming he had been drugged or inhaled some exotic mind altering pollen. "May I touch you?"

Rose was floored. This was definitely a first for her. The Doctor always touched her. Why would he need permission? Oh, right, she was naked. That was an easy answer. "Yes." She flushed head to toe again.

"Sit up." The Doctor smiled lovingly at her. She could describe it that way now, Rose realized in excitement. She obeyed, moving into a sitting position. Out of habit, she covered her chest and pelvis with her arms. If the Doctor noticed, he didn't say anything about it.

He raised himself up as well, and brought a hand to her left cheek, no her eye, no her scar. The fingers of his right hand grazed over it softly, and he leaned forward to press a kiss to the jagged white line there. His fingers moved next to the four thin blemishes on her right cheek. He stroked them just as softly, and placed four feather light kisses to the marks. He took her shoulders and pulled her forward gently, resting her head against his shoulder. His fingers found the knotted scar on her back. He leaned forward, turning her slightly, and peppered his lips along the reddish brown disfiguration.

The Doctor moved her back upright, and Rose felt her heart shudder. She had forty-seven more scars, some in places that bordered on intimate. Was he going to? Oh, he was. "Would you please lie back for me?" This time it was a request. A chance to let him know when too much was too much.

Rose lowered herself onto her pillows, but she was too nervous, too self conscious to move her arms. She had had no qualms earlier, but that was before she knew how he felt.

"May I?" He asked, resting his hands on each of her forearms. Rose nodded, and the Doctor gingerly lifted her arms and rested them by her sides. His eyes fluttered shut, but his lips made contact with every small round scar, starting at the swell of her breast and working his way down her torso. He didn't caress the individual scars this time. His fingers stayed politely curled in her hands. When he reached her thighs, Rose thought she'd crawl out of her skin nervousness. He kissed the four scars on her right thigh first, and then the three scars on her left, his eyes still closed.

Rose had expected her hormonal human body to react to these kisses, but it didn't. These gestures weren't intended to arouse her. They were intended to heal her.

The Doctor moved back up into a sitting position and opened his eyes. He was looking pointedly at her face again, and Rose was grateful. He pulled her gently back into a sitting position, this time in his lap, and kissed the tip of her nose. "Have I ever told you how perfect you are?"

"No." Rose whispered.

"Well you are." The Doctor smiled and pressed a kiss to her forehead. "I've never seen anything quite so stunning in all my nine hundred and five years."

"Doctor?" Rose let her fingers play at his tie. "How long have you loved me?" Good job brain, way to kill the mood with you insecurities.

"I'm not sure exactly when it started, I think from the moment you said 'There's me." The Doctor admitted, "but I finally admitted it to myself as I was facing the beast on Kropp Tor. I kept thinking I would die, and that didn't hurt me. What hurt, was realizing that I'd never see your smile again, or hold your hand, or smell your skin." The Doctor ran his fingers along her sides softly. "I was just too big a coward to tell you."

"Doctor." Rose pressed a soft kiss to his jaw. "Thank you."

The Doctor hummed in contentment and hugged her tightly. "I think you need to rest now, darling." He moved Rose gently under the blankets.

"Stay with me." She extended her hand to him.

"Always." He smiled. The Doctor shed his coat, tie, shoes, shirt, and belt. Then he snuggled in behind her. He wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her back against him. The TARDIS dimmed the room lights, and with a final kiss to the back of her hair, they both closed their eyes. 


End file.
